Linden DeBie, Warwick, New York
Winter, 2018
Phillip Schaff began his career at the Mercersburg Seminary of the German Reformed Church in 1844. He was 25 years old, and fresh off the boat from Germany. Already a recognized if still untested scholar by the finest theologians and historians in Germany, Schaff was cut from the more pious and churchly cloth of the group known as the German Mediating School. This loosely allied group of academics was so-named for their attempts to tamper down the so-called remaining rationalism responsible for the charge of heterodoxy in the systems of Hegel and Schleiermacher.[1] They included perhaps the most famous church historian of his time, August Neander, who after a sojourn among the mediators, had returned to Schleiermacher.
Keep in mind that the perceived malignant vestige of rationalism was irrevocably tied to the attempt by Hegel and Schleiermacher, along with a host of their contemporaries, including Immanuel Kant, to render the Christian faith credible to modern sensibilities which meant to make it as scientific and philosophically reasonable as possible. This was the difficult tightrope Schaff and all the mediators would walk—a kind of creative but futile attempt to have their cake and eat it: to be both orthodox and scientific in the modern sense of the word, appealing to post-Enlightenment tastes. That helps us place Schaff.
On the spectrum of religious sentiment circulating in Germany around that time, Schaff was one group right of center. Left of those who simply wanted to return Germany to the Bible and the Reformation practice of Luther and Calvin, and one group right of the so-called rightwing Hegelians, like Karl Daub and Frederick Rauch, whose love of speculative philosophy had them bordering on latitudianarism. As right of center, Schaff distanced himself from the notorious left-wing Hegelians like Bruno Bauer who was his teacher in Berlin.[2] Perhaps the best way to place him is alongside the genius who led Germany in recovering state sponsorship of evangelical faith, defeating both Hegel and Schleiermacher and that would be August Tholuck.
But what about Schaff as a historian? That’s an important piece of the methodological puzzle. Well again its best to place him on an orthodox, Reformed trajectory of his famous teacher, August Neander. Neander was a conservative alternative to his teacher, von Ranke who many consider the father of modern Historicism which led the way to contemporary historical science seeking to ween history of religious bias. Their mantra was “let the historical facts speak for themselves.”[3] Neander and even more so Schaff, were not so progressive, and they retained a deeply Christian philosophy of religion wed to their history, one much indebted to Frederick Schelling in his later stage. At the same time, they borrowed richly from German historical science.
In effect Neander and Schaff were beneficiaries of earlier Enlightenment historiography, but as I said they did not fall in with the rising Historicist school who tended toward Spinozic pantheism.[4] Essentially Schaff was an evangelical historian applying a more orthodox, speculative philosophical approach pioneered by Schelling and Hegel among others.[5]
When Schaff arrived in America he was met by his colleague John W. Nevin who four years earlier became head of the seminary. From the very beginning the two were of such rare singlemindedness that until the end of the Civil War when Schaff left his position there, they never openly disagreed on any matter that appeared before a very talkative, German community and religious press. That is despite being engaged in very heated controversies that frequently roiled the denomination. The primary source of this remarkable singlemindedness or centrolinealism was a shared, central theological/historical principle that guided all their teaching, the Incarnation. The two converged on and then proceeded from that first principle or dogma and the resulting Christology. It controlled their entire system, a system that became known as the Mercersburg Theology.[6]
This was especially remarkable, because among the German professors, theologians and pastors who first heard Schaff’s inaugural address upon arriving in America, only the outsider Nevin, a Princeton-trained, ordained Presbyterian professor and preacher, fully understood what his new colleague was saying (and saying in German). Moreover it was likely that only Nevin (and perhaps a few of his students who had studied with the now deceased Frederick Rauch, the previous president of Marshall College); only Nevin had no reservations whatsoever with the inaugural’s general canvas of church history, its view of the present state of the church, and the startling conclusion that the churches of the Reformation were the product or offspring of the Roman Catholic Church. (This may even qualify as a first and unwelcomed instance of what would later become American ecumenism.) Schaff’s conclusion naming Rome as the Reformed faith’s historical parent scandalized some of the denominational leaders while Nevin took it as obvious.[7]
Full subscription between the two with virtually no significant disagreements, can be supported with numerous examples. Four noteworthy examples are that when charges were brought by the Philadelphia Classis that heresy was being taught at the Seminary, it was Schaff and Nevin with Schaff being the first cited, who were together accused at Synod. A second better example is that when Charles Hodge’s Princeton denounced the Mercersburg Theology, Schaff stated in his journal Der Deutche Kirchenfreund, that he was a “leader” with Nevin in the Mercersburg Theology; that he with Nevin had “instigated” the controversy with Princeton; that he was perfectly prepared to server his relationship with Princeton if need be; and that it was time to “pick up the gauntlets of self-defense.”[8] Third, about midway in Schaff’s time in Mercersburg he and Nevin published on the very controversial question of baptismal grace and showed “the very close [theological] relation” of the two and unanimity on the whole subject matter.[9] Finally, if in fact there were a time for Schaff to wash his hands of Nevin it would have been in October 1851 when both offered their resignations from the seminary in the backlash over Nevin’s work on the Anglican crisis[10] and early Christianity, both demonstrative of Nevin’s Roman Catholic sympathies. In fact, Schaff spoke eloquently to the Synod in Nevin’s defense, demonstrating their solidarity and leading to a vote of 10 to 1 in favor of rejecting the resignation.[11] Schaff and Nevin remained at the helm of the seminary.
Further illustrative of their close collaboration was Nevin’s translation of Schaff’s expanded inaugural address where he also provided the Introduction. And although they both suffered for their farsightedness, they continued to work at the seminary in tandem without noticeable disagreement, forging a unified theology for six years and then as denominational leaders until 1863. The only source of objection to this conclusion can be found in a variety of very good books and articles on Schaff, essentially insisting that Schaff’s personality was quite different from Nevin’s. That Schaff was by nature placid and irenic. That Nevin in contrast, was a controversialist who was forever engaging in rivalries. But while Schaff would rather not fight, behind the rivalries were doctrines that both he and Nevin militantly defended. It was just that Nevin was bombastic and aggressive. Schaff was more a mediator and bridge-builder which we see clearly in his later, mature years. This is all true. But again, it doesn’t prove doctrinal differences but rather differences in personality and temperament.
However, the unshakable relationship developed a significant doctrinal wrinkle near the end of Schaff’s time at Mercersburg. Around 1851-52 Nevin began expanding on their novel and clearly Anglican-influenced conception of the church[12] which until then was shared and summarized in Schaff’s The Principle of Protestantism and Nevin’s sermon on “Catholic Unity.” But now Nevin began to develop his Reformed confessionalism in concert with an original and well-defined early catholic episcopacy. Schaff, in private, uttered words that were on the lips of many of Nevin’s detractors: that Nevin was displaying “Romanizing tendencies.” Of course, that is precisely what the two of them had been charged with by the Philadelphia Classis, stood together in the face of these charges, and were exonerated. Schaff went so far as to say had he not been vindicated he would have been on the first boat back to Germany.
Nevertheless, Nevin’s later High-Church, Reformed ecclesiology elevated his confessionalism (essentially his esteem of the Apostles’ Creed), to a place where Schaff clearly would not go, and that was to place it alongside or even “above” the bible. In print, what we know of Schaff’s concern was that he reiterated the Reformed consensus that the creeds are of human origin and change with time. Only the bible was of divine origin and could not change nor find an equal.[14] Contrast that with Nevin’s conclusions: “It is not without reason, therefore, that the Holy Scriptures are not mentioned in the Creed . . . in the true order of faith, the authority of the Scriptures can be only of subsequent apprehension and force . . . the Bible could not stand in the Creed where the Church now stands.”[15] Of course, all this must be put in the context of Nevin’s equal concern which was what he believed was the spreading idea of private interpretation of Scripture. For Nevin the bible cannot interpret itself and can only be rightly interpreted by the Church.[16]
Schaff’s early, growing concerns came at about the same time Nevin was extolling Cyprian and the early church such that it would be hard to believe that Schaff wasn’t quietly distancing himself from his irascible friend and colleague or at least clarifying what he knew to be the Reformed position in contrast to Nevin’s. And yet, at the same time they served together on a liturgical committee that assembled the highest authorized Protestant liturgy produced in America.[17] This has all the appearance of a contradiction and in light of that it would be drastic to overstate the degree of difference between the two when it came to ecclesiology or worship, or even the importance of the Creed which figured prominently in the new liturgy. But life is complex, relationships tricky, and so to ignore their late, liturgical agreement would also be a mistake. Still, it is precisely in the liturgical debate that we find clear evidence that Nevin was moving beyond Schaff by elevating the rite of ordination to near sacramental status. Indeed, Nevin was accused of making ordination a third sacrament.[18]
Of course, this is the disagreement that historians love to point to and can attest to with some certainty as testing the professors’ loyalties.[19] However, again very little was made public in this matter. And yet, I would submit that in fact too little today is made of this in terms of what was truly at stake, and what would so distinguish the two as their careers developed apart from one another as they went their separate ways. In the end they moved in decidedly different directions and developed distinctly different ideas of what the church of the future might look like.
Again, very little clarity has been brought to bear on the substance of that difference. The reason for that is complex, but part of the lacuna might be due to a gross error repeated by several scholars that after 1848 Nevin was finished as a theologian.[20] In fact, I think some of his best Christology and certainly his most original theology in general, emerged in his later debate with the great German Mediating theologian, Isaac Dorner.[21] Dorner and Nevin were nearly as close as Schaff and Nevin in their thinking. But Dorner had come out against Nevin because of some misinformation he had received and Nevin, consistent with his character, put on his combative gloves. The debate forced Nevin to sharpen his Christology such that we begin to recognize his originality and how it deepened his ecclesiology. And although it is always dangerous to declare first principles in some foundational manner, Nevin’s ecclesiology seems to emerge here as the bedrock of his Christology. That indeed, is the crux of the Dorner/Nevin debate, and the significant difference between Nevin and Schaff upon his taking residency at Union.
As I mentioned, shortly after Schaff moved to New York, Nevin entered into heated debate and again another controversy with the famous Isaac Dorner. Dorner was unwittingly dragged into the controversy perhaps even misled, and as the two spared Nevin realized how little Dorner knew outside of Germany; that Dorner was after all a Lutheran; and that Dorner too closely tied the future of the Protestant church to a recovery of the German Reformation, at least in terms of its guiding principles and spirit. Nevin argued that Dorner merely paid lip-service to the need to not simply repristinate the church, as some conservatives would like, but to move beyond the Reformation by moving the church forward, combining the lessons of the Reformation with the great Christological discoveries of the era.[22] It just may be that in theory Schaff agreed with Dorner.
Nevin however, vehemently disagreed, insisting that Dorner’s system and theory of the church was in fact no more than an attempt to recover the Reformation for modern times, and make it hostage to a damnable German preoccupation with the union of church and state which Nevin and Schaff both deplored. However, Nevin went beyond Schaff by insisting we collimate the Reformation with the early church, such that we not only recover the great lessons of that era, but that we return to the early centuries and imbibe those lessons as well—especially the early confessional tradition and ancient liturgies (its worship and ecclesiology). Then we can we move forward by incorporating contemporary church science to bring about a new, revitalized ecumenical and apostolic Christianity. (This is essentially what Nevin set out to do in his study of Calvin.)
But now it is here in this controversy with Dorner, that the rift appears to be deeper than simply the doctrine of ordination. It goes to Nevin’s essentially catholic ecclesiology, and his idea of the future of the church. Here Nevin was moving in a new and radical direction. And I think it would be fair to say that not only does his theory encompass liturgics and theology, but epistemology in terms of faith. Nevin is hinting at if not outright endorsing the principle of lex orandi lex credendi “the law of prayer establishes the law of belief” such that the worship and confession of the church are the first source of the knowledge of God.[23]
Schaff would go on to ultimately embrace the American Protestant system in general, while Nevin would remain its outspoken critic. This was not accidental, nor was it simply the effect of Schaff’s expanding knowledge and appreciation of American Protestantism. For Nevin the principle of denominationalism was a systemic defect within the Reformation itself such that any real church unity or vital ecumenicity would not issue from Reformation models, but from biblical and ancient catholic models. Dorner seemed oblivious to that, and Nevin criticized him for engaging in that insatiable German need to unify all things under German science.
Schaff however, fell out in quite another place, one that ultimately would endear him to the American denominational system. As a Swiss, Schaff was by character someone whose Protestantism was tied directly to that freedom of conscience that Zwingli (and Luther) first expressed and the Swiss are to this day, compelled to in pursuit of their religious freedom. And so, in what appeared to be the progressive American theater of experimental religion, Schaff found a comfortable home for freedom of conscience, all of which seemed to flourish on American soil. Dorner however, knew essentially nothing of the American context. In fact, he was quite arrogant in his disdain. In contrast, native-born Nevin knew the American mindset very well and he would have none of it. For him, American freedom had gotten out of hand. He not only abhorred the idea of the union of church and state along with Schaff, he also despised denominationalism in principle and practice.
So, toward the end of their lives their whole outlook on the present and future state of Christianity evolved, such that the two could not have been farther apart. Schaff for his part was utterly optimistic about the prospects of Protestant religion in the United States, embraced the principle of denominationalism in its anticipation of cooperation if not union, and walked in step with the overwhelming majority of Protestant leaders whose millennial aspirations anticipated the return of Christ with the fulfillment of the American experiment. This was conceived of as the third and final stage of church history. Nevin was of the opposite opinion.
In closing, let me share Nevin’s guarded indeed grim observations as he once again played the part of Casandra. “In the view of many, the revolutionary forces which are now everywhere at work . . . [will bring about] the deliverance of the world from its present state of bondage and sin. The redemption of humanity is to be reached, they suppose, through these powers working themselves out to their own natural results . . . This is the temptation of the age . . . But we have no assurance in these signs, that the change will move on victoriously in the line of universal righteousness and truth. On the contrary, it is all too plain that the elements and forces which are bringing on the new era, are themselves fraught with a power of evil, which may prove altogether too strong in the end for all they appear to have in them as a power of good. . . . We cannot trust the ground on which the age is standing. We know that it is volcanic.”[24]
I leave it to the reader who was the better prophet.
[1] This was by no means their only agenda, and the dozen ways they “mediated” contemporary thought is well documented in Annette G. Aubert, The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology.
[2] Linden DeBie, Speculative Philosophy and Common-Sense Religion, 73.
[3] Von Ranke led the way in departing from the predominant historical methods by 1) applying the critical scientific approach including a meticulous examination of the sources 2) focused on original sources and not on secondary sources 3) defended the autonomy of history as a science independently of philosophy and theology. It was in this third area that Neander departed from von Ranke and embraced first Schleiermacher, then Schelling and Hegel returning later to Schleiermacher. Schaff followed suit, but differed from both rejecting Neander’s latitudinarianism and demonstrating even more conservative methodology. What they shared was a weakness in clear methodology and epistemology, and a retention of philosophy as the guide of history.
[4] Frederick C. Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition.
[5] Hence the name, Mediating School.
[6] “The Mercersburg Theology” originally was coined as a pejorative term by the anti-Mercersburg party. Later it became the universally recognized name of the theology supporting the Mercersburg movement. Henry Harbaugh, “Introductory Article,” The Mercersburg Review, XIV, 1867, 6.
[7] Linden DeBie, Coena Mystica. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013, xxxii-xxiv.
[9] Nichols, Roman p. 245.
[10] Explain Anglican Crisis
[11] Nichols, 206-208
[12] John W. Nevin, “Our Relations to Germany,” The Mercersburg Review, 14, 1867, 632. “In this respect, we freely admit, our theology is more Anglican than German.”
[14] Where Schaff ends up is neatly summarized in his late Theological Propadeutic. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893, 406-407. Schaff states, “All creeds are more or less imperfect and fallible. The Bible alone is the rule of faith (regula credenda), the noma normata, and has only ecclesiastical and therefore relative authority, which depends on the measure of its agreement with the Bible.
[15] John W. Nevin, “Answer to Professor Dorner,” Mercersburg Review, Vol. XV, 580. Italics mine for emphasis.
[16] “The only fair alternative lies between the bible as apprehended by the Church, and the same bible apprehended by an individual, or by some party or sect to which he may happen to belong.” John W. Nevin, “Introduction,” The Principle of Protestantism. Philip Schaff, p-14-13.
[17] CHRISTOPHER THIS IS TRUE AS FAR AS I KNOW. IS IT IN FACT TRUE?
[18] Indeed, in several places. Here we cite, John W. Nevin, “Answer to Professor Dorner,” The Mercersburg Review, XV, 1858, 624.
[19] The most illuminating treatment of this is in Jack Maxwell, Worship and Reformed Theology: The Liturgical Lessons of Mercersburg, Pittsburg: The Pickwick Press, 1976,237-243.
[20] Examples Hart and Evans
[21] Nevin’s late evolution cannot be precisely traced but certainly gains impetus with his work early church. But in his debate with Dorner which appeared in several places right after the Civil War, we see him sharpening his position in terms of Christology.
[22] In fact, the central bone of contention between the two, was that Dorner insisted that Christianity has its foundation in the idea of God. Nevin counters that Christianity has its foundation in the historical fact of the Incarnation. See John W. Nevin, “Answer to Professor Dorner,” Mercersburg Review, XV, 1868, 552. This led to a remarkable Christology debate between the two. However, I would suggest the more interesting development here is Nevins’ rebuttal and insistence that although we share some God-consciousness, the inward sense of deity, we get nowhere near the Christian idea of God this way, nor are we close in any sense of the word to the highest revelation of God which can be considered true religion. It requires instead utter reliance on the “Logology of St. John,” where by faith alone we apprehend the fulness of God’s being. Moreover, this faith which is required for right knowledge is not limited as Dorner would have to mere justifying faith whereby the merits of the atonement are laid out for us, but the full spectrum of faith as require by the Apostles’ Creed. “Answer,” 552-553
[23] Something of this exists in Nevin’s old colleague, Frederick Rauch.
[24] Commencement Address, MR, 14, 1867, 500-502
Mercersburg Today 